Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

Document Type

Degree Name

Department

Committee Chair

Ragade, Rammohan K., 1942-

Author's Keywords

Power management; Control systems; Neural networks; Expert systems

Subject

Electric power production--Data processing

Abstract

The management of power and the optimization of systems generating and using power are critical technologies. A new architecture is developed to advance the current state of the art by providing an intelligent and autonomous solution for power systems management. The architecture is two-layered and implements a decentralized approach by defining software objects, similar to software agents, which provide for local optimization of power devices such as power generating, storage, and load devices. These software device objects also provide an interface to a higher level of optimization. This higher level of optimization implements the second layer in a centralized approach by coordinating the individual software device objects with an intelligent expert system thus resulting in architecture for total system power management. In this way, the architecture acquires the benefits of both the decentralized and centralized approaches. The architecture is designed to be portable, scalable, simple, and autonomous, with respect to devices and missions. Metrics for evaluating these characteristics are also defined. Decentralization achieves scalability and simplicity through modularization using software device objects that can be added and deleted as modules based on the devices of the power system are being optimized. Centralization coordinates these software device objects to bring autonomy and intelligence of the whole power system and mission to the architecture. The centralization approach is generic since it always coordinates software device objects; therefore it becomes another modular component of the architecture. Three example implementations illustrate the evolution of this power management system architecture. The first implementation is a coal-fired power generating station that utilized a neural network optimization for the reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions. This illustrates the limitations of this type of black-box optimization and serves as a motivation for developing a more functional architecture. The second implementation is of a hydro-generating power station where a white-box, software agent approach illustrates some of the benefits and provides initial justification of moving towards the proposed architecture. The third implementation applies the architecture to a vehicle to grid application where the previous hydro-generating application is ported and a new hybrid vehicle application is defined. This demonstrates portability and scalability in the architecture, and linking these two applications demonstrates autonomy. The simplicity of building this application is also evaluated.